The quantum of segregated organic waste that the Coimbatore Corporation handed over to the composting plant at Vellalore was only 22 % of the nearly 14,000 tonnes of the total municipal solid waste the civic body has sent to the composting plant, as per the figures available till February this year, according to the private agency operating the plant.
In a letter to the Corporation Commissioner, the Coimbatore Integrated Waste Management Company stated that as per the agreement with the civic body and a National Green Tribunal order dated April 28, 2017, the Corporation should supply only 100% segregated waste. However, the private operator says the Corporation hands over the entire municipal solid waste, including inorganic, instead of only organic waste
While the percentage of segregated organic waste handed over in December 2022 was 21.66 %, it was 19.46% in January 2023 and 21.26 % in February, the company claimed.
“Due to non-segregation of waste at source, the compost is being rejected by farmers due to the presence of shards of glass, and plastics,” it mentioned.
The percentage of segregated organic waste handed over by the Corporation was between 13.66 % to 22.30 % last year as per the data provided by the company, alleged K.S. Mohan, secretary of the Kurichi-Vellalore Pollution Prevention Action Committee.
“Separate vehicles to collect organic and inorganic waste arrive only in a few wards. In most areas, if the total waste collected is 50 tonnes, only 6 to 7 tonne is segregated,” he claimed.
Decentralising the segregation, which means separating waste at the zonal level instead of taking it to micro composting centres or material recovery facilities, will be more effective, he added.
Corporation Commissioner M. Prathap, in a recent meeting with a German private company, mentioned that there were two phases of transferring waste and the segregated garbage gets mixed up in the second phase.
“The process has to be monitored. We are exploring options for an end-to-end encrypted system with no manual intervention [for better waste segregation],” he said.
K. Kathirmathiyon, secretary of Coimbatore Consumer Cause, said that total segregation would take place only if all the stages of management — collection, transfer, treatment, and disposal — were streamlined across the city.
“Along with people’s cooperation, the Corporation must monitor the system at every step. Decentralising methods can be done on a trial basis in a few areas,” he added.
